Posts made in October, 2014

A federal court in Texas ruled that flavors of a pizza chain’s food and its plating techniques lacked trademark and trade dress protection. The pizza chain, New York Pizzeria, Inc. (NYPI) alleged that Ryandir Syal, a restaurateur, along with other defendants, obtained NYPI’s trade secrets and additional information through a series of other illegal acts. Syal then used the information for a business in direct competition with NYPI, while allegedly infringing on NYPI’s intellectual property.
The court’s decision came after Syal made a motion to dismiss both the trademark and trade dress infringement claims under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), as well as...

What began as a trademark infringement case, developed into a battle of possible “genericide” when two popular moving and storage companies went head-to-head in federal court. Back in 2012, PODS sued U-Haul for trademark infringement for its use of “pods” under both state and federal laws. U-Haul countered that it was not infringement, because pods has become a generic term and has lost its distinctiveness in the market.